introduction

[Michael Hoennig]

Hi Horde users and developers!

I'd like to join the Horde project because we seem to have the same
basic ideas. Who is not interested in my background: the second half of
this mail is about my ideas with Horde.

*** 'bout me and my projects

For way over 10 years I am a software developer, mostly working with
C++. My primary skill is actually not so much programming itself, it's
more software architecture. I'm a dedicated UNIX user (10 years ago
XENIX and ESIX, currently Solaris and Linux), though I was forced for
years and years to use Windows on my job. I like PHP, but to be honest,
I'm not very experienced with PHP, but I used it for some scripts,
changed some stuff in some big scripts and as a very experienced C++
programmer, I think I can quickly improve in this programming language
as well.

I run a couple of websites (sorry, all in German language):

- a forum for binational couples in Germany
	http://www.binational-in.de
- a portal for multicultural relations in Germany
	http://www.multikulti-in.de (not promoted yet)
- a subdomain service
	http://www.is4u.de

Additionally I'm involved in a webhosting project in the mind of open
source (http://www.hostsharing.org), meaning we are communicating openly
and are based on open source software only. We are currently in the
process of officially founding a coop. 

Over the day I'm workin on another open source project, but I get paid
for it: I'm the project owner of http://api.openoffice.org. There I
currently try to convice the GNOME/BONOBO hackers in finding a migration
path for our two APIs.

*** 'bout my vision with Horde

What I actually need for my websites, is a mixture of Zope
(http://www.zope.org) and Midgard (http://www.midgard-project.org), but
more based on CVS rather than on a database. Thus I need a Web-CMS and
application server.

In detail, I'd like to have my websites manged by CVS, where scripts,
layout and content are separated. Content can be either (X)HTML, XML,
BLOBs (i.e. PNG or JPEG) or plain text. Layout consists of templates and
stylesheets (i.e. CSS). Scripts consists of PHP, for the most part. 

There should be two ways of working on contents: Online with a
web-frontend, Offline with explicit useage of CVS checkout, commit etc.
To me it is very important that the website can be tested before
commiting a new version, even offline on a notebook computer. But less
experienced contributors should have an easy-to-use web-frontend. For
layouts and scripts the direct use of CVS is ok, I think. It should be
possible to create static pages (using PHP to merge layout and content)
for most pages of a website. 

Other things I need, are a todo management system, a community calendar
and a web-forum system. Where a database is ok for a todo management
system and a community calendar, I don't see much reasons for having a
forum based on a database. The vast majority of users do work pretty
straight forward with a forum - at least in my acse. Additionally I'd
like to have a system which I can use for a community service which
should not consume too much CPU power. With other words: I'd like to
have a forum which creates static (X)HTML pages when articles are
written, so the forum can be browsed without further calls to scripts. 

I have much more ideas of how everything could work together,
community-user-registration, attached mailing lists etc. But one after
the other ;-)

Don't you think, Horde is a good basis for my ideas? How does my vision
fit your vision for Horde?

I'm looking forward in working with you.

	Michael

-- 
Boytinstr. 10 - D-22143 Hamburg - Germany ----- http://www.hoennig.de
home:++49 40 67581412 office:++49 40 23646910 mobile:++49 177 3787491
http://www.binational-in.de -- Forum für binationale Paare & Familien
http://www.hostsharing.org - Webhosting-Spielregeln mal neu definiert